Attempting to install a working OS on a One A120 VIA C7-M mini-notebook in 2023

Sometimes I’m fancy and think I know better—or at least, I think that getting the obscure 3rd-party product could be more fun, than getting the No. 1 in the market. Back when the Netbook hype was just building around the ASUS EeePC, I did just that: I did not opt for an Intel powered machine, and bought a little mini-notebook based on the Quanta IL1 design, featuring a VIA C7-M CPU instead.

I am not exactly sure when that was (2008, 2009?) or how I bought it (new? Slightly used?), but the hardware wasn’t exactly great for its time—it’s a what one would call a netbook, if it had an Intel chip, after all. It has 512 MB of RAM (64 MB used for the S3-based VX800 GPU), and 4 GB of flash storage. It has a bad 7″ screen with an 800×480 px resolution, but, typically for these early devices, one could have easily fit a 9″ screen in its case. The battery is removable, and the unit is quite thick.

Continue reading “Attempting to install a working OS on a One A120 VIA C7-M mini-notebook in 2023”